He had amassed the equivalent of $53,000 by the time he was just 16.

Buffett knew how to make money from an early age.
AP Images

Paper delivery was just one of many small businesses teenage Buffett orchestrated: He sold used golf balls and stamps, buffed cars, set up a pinball machine business, and turned a horse track into a lucrative playground.

He was rejected from Harvard Business School.

Harvard Business School.
Flickr/Florian Pilz

Buffett, confident he nailed his admissions interview, had already told a friend, "Join me at Harvard."

"I looked about 16 and emotionally was about nine," he recalled of the in-person interview. Forced to look elsewhere, he settled on Columbia University, which only required a written application and no interview.

His idol refused to hire him the first time he applied.

Benjamin Graham (left).
AP Images

Buffett originally wanted to work with his idol, and author of " The Intelligent Investor," Benjamin Graham, but Graham rejected him because he wasn't Jewish (Graham was saving a spot at his firm for someone Jewish, since at the time Jewish people had a tougher time landing work on Wall Street).

Buffett wouldn't take no for an answer, and continued pitching Graham ideas until he eventually hired him.

Though Buffett spends frugally, he gives generously. In 2010, he teamed up with Bill and Melinda Gates to form The Giving Pledge, an initiative that asks the world's wealthiest people to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

As of June 2016, more than 154 affluent individuals have signed the pledge, including Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison.

In July 2016, Buffett broke his own giving record when he donated $2.9 billion to various charities, including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which is named for his late wife.

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